Ubuntu Women Shelter

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A little bit of context

Imagine being a vulnerable woman in a strange city where its cold and windy. Imagine fleeing gender based or domestic violence. Imagine fleeing FGM, torture, forced marriage, slavery, war and/or rape. Imagine being queer, trans, gender queer, non binary, perceived as a different gender to what you identify as.

Imagine escaping all of that to come to a place where you don't speak the language, where the state has deliberatley created a hostile enviroment for you and where you would rather sleep on the street than have to exchange sex for accomodation.

But there’s a problem

However many women are excluded from accessing homelessness, welfare services and housing including:

Non EEA women with limited leave to remain (students, asylum seekers pending a final resolution of their claims);

Women who have status but face delays in accessing benefits

Citizens and women with leave to remain but no access to housing benefits or welfare

Here’s what we’re doing about it

Creating a space where people belong in. This will be based in Glasgow, Scotland. Building a stronger community. Restoring voices and remembering stories.

Ubuntu has a building which we hope to renovate into a warm, dry, safe place for people to stay when then need to. It will have bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, space to wash clothes and chill out.

We (the Ubuntu team) will be there each night to make sure that there is warm nutritous food, a friendly face and people to talk to who have direct experience of the immigration and asylum system.

We are structured to resist the socially conditioned gender binary that denies persons who identify as women accommodation and health services, safe non-judgemental spaces to be themselves.

You can join us

We need £10000 to renovate the building we have, to ensure that it is a safe, comfortable and functional space for the people who need it. We also need to money to keep the space running, to pay the bills and to buy food and resources.